Fifty years ago the Flathead Valley workforce was changing.

More and more young mothers were working outside the home and it became apparent there was a real need for an organized child-care program. When the state Department of Public Welfare approached Epworth United Methodist Church in Kalispell about starting such a program, church members recognized the need and stepped up.

As winter settled into the Flathead in December 1966, Marguerite Smith Memorial Day Care Center opened on the third floor of the church, the first licensed child-care facility in Montana.

A half-century later children’s laughter still fills the center as they delve into educational activities and art projects.

It was Marguerite Smith, a longtime member of Epworth Church and school teacher, who provided the financial means to develop a child-care center. She died in May 1966 and willed a sum of money to the church with the stipulation it be used for children. The church board of trustees established a $2,000 Marguerite Smith Christian Education Fund, and borrowed money from the fund to help start the day-care center.

The Epworth congregation has always supported the day care. The center’s scrapbook is filled with newspaper clippings about ongoing improvements and needs. In 1969 the Daily Inter Lake wrote about an effort to collect 60,000 Betty Crocker coupons to help buy a washer and dryer for the facility.

Church members continue to help out, not only with financial needs, but also with ongoing maintenance of the facility and outdoor playground. Members such as Bob Bigler, nicknamed “Bob the Builder,” stop by regularly to see what needs to be fixed. He just put a new roof on the playground sandbox. Rick Hagen and Charlie Howard are other willing volunteers among many, and the church women help out in myriad ways, said longtime director Tammy Braseth.

Smith Memorial Day Care has always operated on a self-sustaining, nonprofit basis, offering an affordable rate structure that consistently draws a waiting list for the child care. In dire situations, accommodations are made for struggling families.

Whitefish resident Mike Hanson remembers when he was a single father attending Flathead Valley Community College in the mid- to late-1990s. He was taking his two toddlers to an expensive drop-in child-care center that was charging $5 per hour.

“A lady at the college told Tammy about my plight,” he recalled, and arrangements were made to have his children attend Smith Memorial Day Care for a nominal fee.

“I’ll tell you what, I’m forever indebted to those women for helping raise my children,” Hanson said about the center staff. “God bless them. I don’t know how my children would have grown up otherwise. I was doing whatever I had to back then to survive, shoveling sidewalks and roofs for extra money.”

When a playground was added to the center in 1996, Hanson was among the volunteers who rallied to put it up in a weekend. “I tried to give back any way I could,” he said.

Hanson pointed out how an Evergreen Elementary School kindergarten teacher remarked that she suspected his children had gone to Smith Memorial Day Care because of their advanced preparation from the preschool program.

Sharry DeVall of Kalispell said she heard the same comment from her children’s kindergarten teacher. The education and preparedness from their time at Smith Memorial was evident.

“I can’t say enough about what Smith Memorial Day Care means to me,” DeVall said.

She was a newly divorced single mother when her sons, then 2 and 4, started at the day care.

“As I struggled financially as a single mom, the board and Tammy helped me through, always putting my kids first.

“Fifteen years later it’s still the place I refer people to,” DeVall said. “It’s known for quality. ... Some of their staff, including Tammy, are still there today, which to me says a lot about how they are treated and the love they have for the kids.”

Linda Cusick of Kalispell had a similar experience when her children were young. Her husband developed multiple sclerosis and had to go into a nursing home.

“I was almost destitute,” she recalled. She was able to enroll her then 7-year-old son in the after-school program and her 3-year-old daughter in the full-day program.

“They knew I was struggling so much. They said ‘How about a dollar a day; you give us $5 every Friday.’ Something like that you never forget,” Cusick said.

Braseth started at Smith Memorial Day Care in 1980. Being able to bring her daughters to work was a big help, she recalled. She became the director in 1993, following in the footsteps of some very dedicated longtime directors that began in 1966 with inaugural director Marge Mero.

Dode McRae, who worked as director for 22 years until her untimely death in 1990, was someone Braseth looked up to and learned from in those years.

“She was my mentor, she was wisdom, and had a heart of gold,” Braseth recalled.

Laura Patterson, another enthusiastic supporter of the day-care center, took the reins as director after McRae died, and served three years until she was killed in a car accident in 1993. Braseth then was chosen as director and has served in that capacity ever since.

“It’s always felt like you’re doing more than working,” Braseth said about her job. “You’re doing something good.”

She gushes about her staff of 10, all of whom are well-suited, she said, to their various positions.

Smith Memorial Day Care is licensed for 56 children, but chooses to keep enrollment a bit lower, at an average of 40. Children must be 2 to attend. There’s always a waiting list.

One of the key reasons the center is able to keep its rates affordable is because it doesn’t pay the church for rent or utility costs. The center continues to be an important ministry of the Epworth congregation, with as much support now as there was when those pioneering child-care providers opened the doors to Smith Memorial Day Care 50 years ago.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.